THE PRIDE SLIDE: In his Commentary newsletter today, Abe Greenwald writes:
As we discussed on the podcast today, a new Gallup poll finds that 58 percent of U.S. adults are “very” or “extremely” proud to be an American. This is a record low. For purposes of comparison consider that, in January 2001, when Gallup first ran this poll, 87 percent of those asked were very or extremely proud Americans. After 9/11, that shot up to 90 percent.
Dismal as this drop is, at least we can say that most Americans are still proud of their country.
Not so for Democrats—not even close. From Gallup: “Democrats are mostly responsible for the drop in U.S. pride this year, with 36% saying they are extremely or very proud, down from 62% a year ago.” Republicans are at 92 percent, and independents are at 53 percent.
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As Democrats have come under the sway of progressive and leftist ideas, they’ve come to agree that the U.S. is, on balance, a nasty place. Their pride in the country is conditional: It surfaces only when one of their own is in the White House. Which isn’t national pride at all—it’s pridefulness. No one put it better than Michelle Obama, who said of her husband’s Democratic nomination in 2008, “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”
It never occurs to them that they can be proud of their country even when it’s not directly rewarding them. They can’t be proud of our being the oldest continuous democracy on the planet. They can’t celebrate the genius of our Constitution and its built-in mechanisms for preserving liberty and facilitating ongoing national improvement. What does America mean to them? Depends who’s in power when you ask. There’s no constancy to their appreciation of the greatest country the world has ever seen.
Related: ‘America First’ Vs. ‘America Worst:’ In Gallup Shock Poll, Dems Have QUIT on America.
If you only saw those headlines, you’d think this was a story about Donald Trump dividing Americans: “That Orange Monster has done it again! We TOLD YOU he was ‘literally Hitler.’ And now, finally, the rest of the country is so disgusted with his fascist MAGA garbage, they’ve — *sniff* — lost their pride in America! This is TERRIBLE!”
That’s the power of headlines. When it comes to propaganda, “fake news,” and misinformation, headlines are still one of the top tools in the propagandists’ toolkit.
Because, when we take a peek under the hood of Gallup’s poll, an entirely different story emerges: This isn’t a tale about Trump dividing America! Nor is it a story about “everyday Americans” forsaking the hopes and dreams of Lee Greenwood.
Instead, it’s a story about Democrats giving up on America.
According to Gallup’s own numbers, in 2001, 90% of Republicans were “extremely” or “very” proud of being an American. Almost an identical number of Democrats — 87% — felt the exact same way.
About eight years later, during the first year of the Obama administration, Republican numbers were pretty much unchanged: 92%.
Yet the Democratic numbers fell to 78%.
And eight years after that (2017), Republican numbers stayed remarkably constant: 92%.
The Democratic number dropped again, to 67%.
Just six years later (2023), the Democrats were back in control of Washington, DC. Joe Biden (and his top aide, Mr. Autopen) were back in the White House. Remember, this was the era of open borders, pro-Hamas protests, and anti-American activism run amuck. Yet once again, Republican pride in America stayed incredibly consistent: 85%.
Meanwhile, the Democratic number dropped to 55%.
So here we are today, in the summer of 2025. Two more years have passed. Gallup just released its latest numbers on American pride, and for the umpteenth time, the Republican numbers are almost entirely unchanged: 92%.
This means that Republicans were just as proud of being an American under the first year of Trump’s second term as they were during the first year of Obama’s first term!
That’s because, for Republicans, American pride isn’t tethered to a politician’s career. We don’t stop loving our country just because we don’t win on Election Day. Instead, it motivates us: Because we love our country, we fight even harder in the following cycle!
Not so with the Democrats: According to Gallup, their pride in America has now plummeted to just… 36%!
That’s the real story, when you look beyond the headlines: The Democratic Party has given up on America.
And yet, they never leave, and are furious at the prospect of illegal immigrants being removed from this vast hellscape of a nation:
